Over and over again, you’ll notice that during times of viral outbreaks, it’s said that people with underlying health conditions are at high risk. One group of people this category refers to is diabetics.
Bolstering your immune system as a diabetic, regardless of whether you have type I, type II or even pre-diabetes, is important. There are many things you can do to protect yourself.
Why Diabetics are Getting Hit Harder in the Pandemic
You need to be careful and take precautions to avoid viruses, but those who are diabetics need have a strategy in place for dealing with viruses if you contract one. The reason that you need to be more careful is not because you’re more likely to catch whatever virus comes along.
The problem is that people with diabetes can develop severe complications due to their impaired immune system. Some people don’t understand what it is about having diabetes that raises the risk level for complications or death due to a viral infection.
The reason that a diabetic has trouble fighting back against whatever virus is going around is due to high blood sugar levels. When someone has a higher level of blood sugar, it gets in the way of the immune system’s ability to fight back.
It prevents the immune system response because it hampers the natural white blood cell reaction to a threat. Your body uses white blood cells to fight whenever your body comes under attack.
This is what comes to your defense in the event you get a mild or a more serious virus. But when you have diabetes, it creates a dysfunctional response. Instead of the white blood cells being able to immediately get to work, they’re slow to respond and can’t stop the virus from going beyond the asymptomatic stage.
So someone with diabetes will usually go on to develop symptoms of the virus they’re facing. This medical condition disrupts the natural response because it weakens the immune system.
A weakened immune system is why diabetics are more susceptible to pathogens and lose some of the protection that a non-diabetic has. Because of this, when someone with diabetes gets a viral infection, that infection is more likely to overpower the immune system and lead to serious lung problems such as pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, and more.
Many of the cases of Covid involving diabetics ended up with serious complications or death due to comorbidity.
Comorbidity Increases Risk
When a diabetic has a comorbidity, it means he or she has another health condition that increases their odds of not only catching Covid, but of developing serious complications to the virus.
That’s because two or more health issues overwhelm the immune system and the more serious these conditions are, the higher your risks. Diabetes can weaken the immune system all by itself.
The disease is hard on the body and makes staying healthy a nearly constant battle. The number one cause of diabetes and lowered immune system response is directly related to the blood sugar control.
Higher levels mean more complications and a diminished ability to fight back against the virus. Not only that, but those who have poor glucose control significantly raise the risk of dying from Covid if contracted.
One of these comorbidities has to do with heart health. Many studies have shown that those with diabetes are at an increased risk for developing cardiovascular complications.
While diabetes is a condition that can be managed, even good management isn’t enough to contradict the risk of poor cardiovascular health. The reason that people who are diabetic face heart disease, which causes them to be doubly at risk of Covid, is because many diabetics also have high blood pressure.
High blood pressure is linked to higher glucose levels, which doubles their risk of serious complications from the virus. In addition to having high blood pressure, many diabetics also have higher cholesterol levels.
This can lead to narrowed or clogged blood vessels. Due to this extra strain on the body, if someone who’s a diabetic ends up catching the virus, they’re more likely to experience greater complications and slowed recovery time.
Another comorbidity associated with diabetes is obesity. This causes the immune system function to become impaired. When someone is a diabetic, it’s poor control that’s more likely to cause these issues – and when you couple that with one or more other conditions, the outcome from catching the virus isn’t positive.
For those diabetics who do survive, recovery is not only slow, but can leave behind damage that lasts – such as lung complications if the patient catches pneumonia or other Covid-associated lung conditions.
Covid Ketoacidosis Risk and Beta Cell Damage
There’s an adverse health link between Covid and those with diabetes due to ketoacidosis. This is a situation that happens when the acids build within the bloodstream of someone who has diabetes.
Any time a diabetic gets a virus, it impacts their blood sugar control and that causes problems. Not only are those who have diabetes at high risk of viral complications from ketoacidosis, but it can seriously hamper recovery.
Even those who have no genetic predisposition to the disease can develop diabetes if they catch the virus and develop ketoacidosis. When the virus is present in the body, the immune system doesn’t just try to fight off the virus.
It can also attack the cells within the pancreas and trigger diabetes because it impairs the body’s ability to make insulin due to cell damage. Diabetics that develop ketoacidosis can experience trouble breathing, which can be acerbated by the viral complications.
This is why one of the solutions for those who do have diabetes is to make sure that you pay attention to your electrolyte levels. You must stay hydrated – especially if you’re feeling under the weather.
You’re at risk for developing ketoacidosis if your blood sugar levels are consistently high. Anytime you notice your range hits over 220, you need to closely monitor it. Once it hits 300 and remains at this high range consistently, you may enter ketoacidosis.
With all of the potential problems and risks that diabetics face, is there anything that you can do in order to protect your immune system? Yes, there is.
Have a Prevention Plan
While you can’t control whether or not you get a virus because you can’t see a pathogen this small, you can have a plan to lower your risk of contracting it. It’s always better to get in front of something than behind it – trying to fix it after an illness has happened.
You can help protect your immune system if you have a prevention plan in place. Viruses are spread through contact with someone’s droplets who does have the virus. That means that if you inhale the infected droplets, you more than likely will get it if your immune system has been weakened.
Covid can be spread through face to face conversation. As a diabetic engages in conversation, they can accidentally inhale spit particles. More than likely, you won’t even realize that this has happened at the moment.
You can get it when someone else coughs and you’re within range because of the droplets flying through the air. You can also get it when someone who has the virus sneezes and those particles are drawn into your body.
Just because you come in contact with the virus doesn’t mean that you’ll get it. Your health all depends on what kind of shape your immune system is in. But for diabetics, your best bet really is to focus on prevention and solutions.
You can prevent droplet infection of the virus by wearing a mask if you don’t have an underlying breathing condition that makes wearing one unsafe. Since close contact can spread the virus from person to person, you need to maintain a safe space between yourself and other people.
Not everyone will practice distancing, even when they’re wearing a mask, so you need to be aware of how much space there is between yourself and someone else. Take a step back or use another path if you need to.
Keep your distance between people when you’re at stores by paying attention to the size of the crowd that’s in the building. Try to shop when there are fewer people around.
Pick up your groceries at curbside if that’s an option for you.
Avoid any unnecessary shopping. If you have a family member who can shop for you, that might be a better option. You can introduce the virus into your body if you touch a contaminated surface and then touch your nose or mouth.
This is why you need to make sure that you wash your hands thoroughly every time you go out. When you’re out in public, make sure that you use hand sanitizer in order to protect yourself.
If you touch anything, use this immediately afterward. Use it after you get back into your vehicle once you’re done shopping. If you touch a cart, you don’t know if the person who used it prior to you was ill or not.
Wipe down the cart handle with hand sanitizer if you’re able to. You want to be sure that your body has what it needs in order to fight back against any kind of virus. This is why you need to ensure that your vitamin levels are all good.
A low vitamin level in Vitamin D can increase the risk of catching the virus. If you haven’t had your vitamin D level checked in awhile, get some bloodwork done to get it checked and if it’s low, find out what your doctor recommends in order to bring it back into the normal range.
Have a complete blood cell count blood test done, especially for your B vitamins. Low levels in this area can compromise your immune health. Don’t skip out on your doctor’s visits if you’re a diabetic.
You need to keep your blood glucose levels under control and this means making sure that you have your A1c checked in addition to regular home monitoring. If you’ve recently had that done and it was within range, you should still make sure you keep all of your doctor’s appointments – even if you need to wait outside in your car for your appointment or use a telehealth visit.
Sometimes your doctor will notice things that you may have overlooked and by catching it early, this can protect your health.
Prioritize Your Well-Being
One of the problems that occurs with the pandemic is that the well-being of a person is often overlooked. Taking care of yourself gets overwhelming in the middle of trying to stay safe and worrying about making sure you do whatever it takes to avoid catching the virus.
But this fear can lead to a lot of mental stress. While stress is difficult on people without any health problems, it’s even more so for someone who has diabetes – and that’s another reason why the virus hits a diabetic harder.
When you’re under stress, especially if it’s the kind of prolonged stress caused by Covid, it makes it more difficult to manage your glucose. That’s because when you’re under stress, your body kicks the fight or flight response into gear.
As a result, this reaction pushes up your glucose levels, even if you’re trying hard to maintain good eating habits and exercise. The extra glucose that occurs as a direct result of the stress remains in your bloodstream and you get the higher blood sugar levels when you test.
It doesn’t matter that these raised levels aren’t in response to eating something. Your body will still feel the same effects and you’ll also be faced with an increased vulnerability to getting ill.
You need to take steps to eliminate the stress you’re under in order to help your immune system be able to properly protect you against the virus and its complications.
When it comes to stress during the pandemic, some diabetics don’t eat.
They might skip breakfast or not eat as often as they should. This can cause your blood sugars to rise and dip, which is bad for glucose control. You need your blood sugar level to be as consistent as possible at all times, but even more so during a viral outbreak.
Some people deal with stress by eating. They’ll have bigger portions with their meals, sometimes on a subconscious level as a way of trying to deal with the stress of the virus.
But all that does is compound the problem. As your glucose numbers go up, you then not only feel bad physically, but you feel bad mentally, too. So it doesn’t solve anything.
You might find that you eat your meals as you normally would, but you find that you stress eat in between meals.
You’re snacking on junk food, even when you’re not hungry, because you’re afraid and feel driven to try to comfort yourself and quiet that fear with food. As a diabetic, it’s important that you put your well-being before anything else.
You need to not only eat right and exercise in ways that help you control your disease, but you also need to make sure that you’re getting enough sleep.
Why Sleep Is an Immune System Solution
When you don’t get the right amount of sleep, it wreaks havoc on your glucose levels. When your glucose level is high, it can cause you to lose sleep, so it’s easy to get stuck in the rut of high levels, no sleep and it just keeps repeating.
You have to take steps to break that cycle and get the sleep that you need in order to help boost your immune system. The less sleep that you get, the higher your glucose will climb.
If, during this pandemic, you find that you’re starting to struggle with getting enough sleep, that can be a sign that something is off with your diabetic care. What some people find is that they’re not sleeping well due to worry and stress, so they find it difficult to cope and drag through their days.
They compensate for that low energy level by eating more. This raised glucose interrupts their sleep when their levels get too high. Your body naturally tries to fight back against high sugar levels by getting it out of the body through your kidneys.
This is why a diabetic often wakes up in the night needing to go to the restroom. If you know that you haven’t had a lot of liquid and yet you’re still getting up in the night, you need to start monitoring your glucose levels more closely.
Prioritize your diabetic health care by making sure that you get the right amount of sleep. When you do this, you can help your immune system stay as healthy as possible.
A healthy immune system not only protects you against common illnesses such as the cold, but also against more serious viral infections such as Covid.
Regular, rejuvenating sleep is something that diabetics can’t do without because of the link to the immune system. With a healthy immune system, you may not experience the same level of illness or even any complications at all.
You’ll also have more energy and the right sleep can also help with stress levels and emotional health.
The Right Diet is Another Immune System Solution
Chaotic times can throw what you consider your “normal” life right out the door. Studies have shown that when a person’s normal routine is altered, their behavior changes – and often for the worse.
The problem is that when your routine is disrupted, so are healthy habits. For a diabetic, this can make you more susceptible to the virus because good habits are imperative to maintain.
One of these habits is making sure that the meals you eat are nutritious. It can be easy to get upset when it’s hard to find things or when going to the store stresses you out to want to eat in a way that doesn’t benefit your health.
If you have a difficult time finding the best foods for your diabetes care, don’t give up and eat the foods that cause your glucose levels to suffer or that cause you to gain weight during the outbreak.
Instead, go with your plan B, which is making meals with the second best choices of the foods that you can buy or have on hand. For example, it’s better to make a meal with meat and white rice, even though rice will raise your glucose, than to consume a processed pizza because of the ingredients in many of those.
You get an overload of carbohydrates, as well as many processed items and high fat meats if you have meat on the pizza. Try as often as possible not to give your body food that doesn’t offer nutritional benefits.
Now more than ever, you need the vitamins and minerals that are found in healthy foods – especially in fruits and vegetables. Make sure that you check out the frozen section of your grocery store.
You’ll be able to find many healthy, low salt and low processed foods that can help you stick to a meal plan that’s better for your diabetes.
Exercise is Necessary for Your Immune System
Everyone needs exercise, but it’s more important for a diabetic. As a diabetic, one thing that’s imperative for your immune system is regular exercise. There’s a strong link between exercise and your immune system.
Studies have shown that getting regular exercise helps keeps the lungs healthy. On top of that, it boosts the immune system because it raises the antibody level to enable your body to be able to better fight against viral invaders.
You may not be able to have regular visits to your gym yet, but that doesn’t mean that you still can’t get in a workout that will help your immune system. You can work out at home using exercise tools, such as DVDs or live streaming exercise classes.
You can jog in place, dance or perform strength or weight training exercises. You can practice yoga, too. Get outside in the fresh air and take a walk around your neighborhood if you’re able to.
You can use a fitness app and count the steps that you take. Each day, strive to hit a higher step count until you’ve worked your way up to 10,000 steps or more.
You Need to Know What Affects Your Diabetic Health
It’s a lot less stressful to avoid the constant onslaught of media focus on the virus because it can be easy to get caught up in the panic. As soon as you get some information, it seems that new information comes out.
However, as a diabetic, it’s better to educate yourself. That doesn’t mean that you need to constantly give yourself a diet of gloom and doom. There are many things about the pandemic that you have absolutely no control over.
You can’t change that. But there are some things that you can change. You do have the ability to take control and make sure you have the right solutions to best care for your diabetes.
You might be careful about what you eat and you might be someone who’s made sure to exercise, even with all of the chaos going on right now. You also might be careful about your sleep habits and yet you find that your glucose levels are still elevated.
You have to find out what’s causing this so that you know how to deal with it. There are medications you might be taking during the virus that are driving your numbers up. If you develop a fever, your first instinct is to take an over the counter fever reliever.
However, many fever lowering medications can cause your blood sugar to rise. If you have a cough and you take cough syrup, this can also have the same effect. You’ll want to read the sugar content of any medication that you take.
Some of these can cause an instant spike in your glucose. Be especially careful of medications containing pseudoephedrine, which is known to affect glucose. Some over the counter pain medications will lower your glucose levels.
While that might not seem like such a big deal, it can be if you’re on insulin. So you have to be wary about that issue when taking it. You might also assume that every time you check your glucose reading, it’s always accurate within a certain margin of error.
However, your monitor can give you a wrong reading, depending on the kind of medication that you’ve taken. If you get a reading that seems off to you, you need to get it checked again.
If you have a wearable glucose monitor, then you need to have a handheld one ready that you can use to retest and compare the numbers. If you already use a handheld version, then you need to retest the number.
Always pay attention to how you feel before and after you’ve taken medication. If you’ve been a diabetic for awhile, you probably already know the signals that your body sends when your levels are too high or too low and you can follow treatment to adjust either.
You want to be careful about medications that can interfere with your immune system’s ability to fight off things like viruses. For example, if you have something going on with your health and you’ve been prescribed a steroid, this can dampen your immune system.
That means that your risk of catching the virus could be higher than if you weren’t taking it. Viral infections aren’t the only issue when you’re taking a steroid. You could end up with both a bacterial and a viral infection due to steroid use.
If you have an autoimmune disease and you take medication to treat the disease, some of these can weaken the immune system’s ability to fight back. Some antidepressants can have a negative impact on the immune system and so can some birth control pills.
Beta blockers as well as asthma medications and some cholesterol lowering drugs can impair the immune system and make you more susceptible to catching a virus. This doesn’t mean that you should abruptly stop taking any medication, but that you should talk to your doctor about the risk posed by any of medications on your immune system and how best to safely take them during the virus outbreak.
Key Solutions for Your Diabetic Immune Health
The key to diabetic immune health during Covid is management. You don’t want to wait until you start having symptoms that frighten you before you decide what to do. Having a plan head of time can not only alleviate a lot of stress and worry, but can also help you get better, faster if you do become ill.
If you start to show mild symptoms of Covid, don’t panic. Many people, including diabetics, do get a mild form of the virus. How well your body responds to any health threat is the top factor in getting well.
Diabetics who have good glucose control, meaning their A1c is 7 or below, will have a stronger immune system as long as there aren’t comorbidities involved. So if you already know that your A1c has been elevated, taking steps right now to get that down should be your first line of defense against the virus.
Focus on what you can change or do rather than what you have no control over. You can’t control having diabetes already, but you can control how it affects your health if you manage the condition.
Your Mental Health and Your Immune System
Many people don’t realize just how important mental health is when it comes to having a healthy immune system. When you don’t take care of your mental health, it affects how strong your immune system is and its ability to fight off things like a serious virus.
That’s because it can be hard to care about taking care of yourself when you’re overwhelmed mentally. You might feel a fatigue that goes beyond anything you’ve ever experienced before.
You might feel like you just don’t have the strength or energy to monitor your health. This is a normal reaction during this time and a lot of people are experiencing it. Because of the virus, there’s been an abundance of news coverage that focuses on depressing topics.
You should educate yourself about the virus as well as how it’s most likely to affect you – but you don’t need to saturate your life with it. When you have too much bad news and it’s a consistent diet of gloom and doom, this starts to weigh on you emotionally.
As a result, it affects your mental health. It’s hard to care about taking care of yourself when it feels like you’re surrounded by negativity and you start thinking there’s nothing good in sight.
This makes it easier to fall back into bad habits, especially pre-diabetes habits that may have led to you developing the disease. It’s easier to turn to comfort foods. This is something that people often use to soothe themselves.
But for people who have a medical condition that’s worsened by over-indulging in food, it has the same outcome as if you were drinking too much. The short term habit will affect your health in the long run.
You need the right foods in order to stay healthy during this time of the virus. The better your nutrition is, the stronger your immunity. That doesn’t mean that you should never, ever indulge in a food that you enjoy.
Just don’t let it be your answer to the unknown or the fear that you may have concerning your health and the virus. Make sure that you don’t binge eat or create a cycle of consuming low nutrition food.
If you notice that you’re overdoing it because you’re trying to cope mentally, replace the food with something else, something healthier for your body so that you can take care of your diabetes.
Because the virus seems to be all anyone is talking about, you need to be careful on social media. It can be easy to get caught up in a cycle of “everything is wrong” and this affects your mental health.
If you use social media, seek out the uplifting things to view or look at articles that help you better manage your diabetes. Look for support and avoid division and any topics that stress you out.
The reason that you want to do this is because studies have shown that people who have diabetes, especially when the glucose levels aren’t within a healthy range, tend to have more of a struggle with depression.
If you don’t manage your mental health, it’s much more difficult to manage your diabetes. You also want to be careful that you’re not shutting yourself off from the world. Not interacting at all isn’t good for your mental health.
You need to have the support of other people for the best diabetic care. Having support can make it easier to make good eating choices as well as help motivate you to do whatever you need to do in order to take care of your disease.
It’s important to your mental health that you don’t stray too much from your normal routine if you find that you’re home instead of at the office. Don’t start sitting up late all night in front of the television and then getting up “whenever,” because a schedule is important for your mental health.
Many diabetics have found that they’re struggling with bad eating habits – or they’re having a problem emotionally or mentally because the virus has taken a toll on them.
If you find that you’re not your normal self and you’re more irritable or you find it difficult to keep up with your usual activities or responsibilities, don’t beat yourself up.
This is a unique time in our life and you’re already dealing with a serious medical condition. Speak to yourself with uplifting words. Meditate, or do something that can help to balance your physical and mental health and hang in there. Things will get better!
